LINDA PENTZ GUNTER reports from the one of 2,700 protests against the Trump government’s power grabs, on a day when seven million people defied fear-mongering in a outpouring of joy and hope in what might be the biggest protest in US history
Is private property peculiar to capitalism and do socialists want to abolish it?
In the second in a series of Marxist Q&As, the MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY examines the nature of private property and how it’s used to extract profit
NO, to both questions. Private property predates capitalism and will survive long after it has been abolished.
But it is important to distinguish personal possessions — your clothes, bicycle, your home (if you “own” it) from capital.
Capital is a particular form of private property — including factories, mines, transport and energy utilities, shops, offices, and, increasingly, financial capital — that enables its owners to make profit from the work of others, and to accumulate yet more capital, and power.
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